The Two Faces of the Doctor
by AnnCarter
Summary: "They're what you become if you destroy Gallifrey. The Man who regrets and the Man who forgets." Near regeneration for 10 & 11, incl. Day of the Doctor spoilers.
1. The Man Who Regrets

All Rights for Doctor Who are the BBC's.

_"They're you. That's what you become if you destroy Gallifrey. The man who regrets..."_

He never, not even once, managed to forget. He had never, not even once, managed to stop thinking about it. He ran from it, day and night, from an adventure to an adventure, running as fast as he could, just to avoid thinking about it. It was always in his mind, always remaining somewhere in the back of his head, where he could see it and sense it but also ignore it if he needed to. It was there, every waking moment of his life, and in his dream he saw those moments all the time.

He regretted it. He regretted so many things he's done. Everyone regrets things and everyone runs from things, but never the way he did. He was over nine-hundred years old, and in his nine-hundred years of time and space he's done more things he regretted than anyone else.

Oh, he's done good. A lot if it. He saved people, planets, empires. He changed so much for the better. He had saved the universe at least half a dozen times. He travelled through time and space and saw incredible things, but had also seen death. For him, his job was to prevent that death, prevent that destruction. Unless, of course, it had to be done for the greater good, like the time he and Rose met Sarah Jane, or the time they went to 1869's Cardiff. But what he tried to do, at least, was to save as many people as he could, whether they were human or not.

And those good things that he's done brought him recognition and care. People admired him and honestly cared about him, simply because he has done so much for them. They knew who they ought to show their gratitude and they did, the best they could.

But that still wasn't enough.

Not because he wanted more. He didn't. He didn't even need their love and care and gratitude. He didn't mind having it, and sometimes it felt good to have it, with all the friends he'd had in the universe, but that wasn't what he needed. No, what he needed was forgiveness. Not from the people around him, not from the people he'd lost, but from himself.

Because in these hundred years that had passed since the Time War, he never stopped regretting. He never stopped beating himself up for all that he's done. He's never, not once, let go of those events. He could never, no matter what happened, let go of the memory from the day he destroyed his own home and people. The Doctor, they all called him. But in his mind, he was always the bringer of doom.

And no matter which adventures he'd had and which species he'd met, he could never let go of that. Around Rose, or sometimes around Martha and Donna, it was easier to pretend to forget, to be excited about everything he'd seen and found, but he never truly forgot. In his days he could feel them, every day, the eyes of the dead, watching him and begging him to avoid destroying his own people. In his nights he watched them fighting their last battle, over and over again, just like he saw himself, with a different face, activating the weapon that destroyed all the Daleks, but also every one of his people.

And in his heart, he could never stop wishing that things would have been different.


	2. The Man Who Forgets

_"... and the man who forgets."_

He kept running, the way he always did. From an adventure to an adventure, from a planet to a planet, from one mystery to another. He'd travelled with Amy Pond, who'd saved his life, and with her husband, Rory, and even with their daughter, River Song. He'd travelled with the Impossible Girl, Clara Oswald. He'd travelled with so many people and received help from so many others, like Madame Vastra. For three hundred years, he'd had a different face and a simple tell different attitude. For three hundred years, he had managed to pretend he had no history.

He always seemed to be happy or excited, rarely serious. He knew that. Amy had told him that once, and so did others. He knew they sometimes thought he was insane, and in a way they were right, because he really was insane. Like he'd told Amy one time, he was just a madman in a box.

But they never understood why. He'd had two incarnations past the Time War. Both incarnations, both faces, could be extremely serious sometimes. Both faces could show great sadness sometimes. Not because something that's happened to them, but because of their past. They both remembered the Time War so lively, as if it'd just happened to them. In a way, it did. A hundred years weren't nearly as long enough to make them forget or forgive themselves.

He remembered, too. Four hundred years, and he'd still remembered. He remembered every bit of it, every single moment of the bloody war between the Time Lords and the Daleks. He remembered that moment of of complete destruction to both races as if it had only happened. Four hundred years also weren't nearly as long enough to forget.

But for him it was different. Because he could still pretend that had never happened. He could still pretend he'd had no past and no future, no crimes to answer to. He pretended to be completely free and joyous about every one of his adventures, and in time, it became the truth. The older he became, the easier it was to smile and laugh all the time. From time to time, it became easier to just enjoy the moment the way his first two faces since the war couldn't.

And the older he got, the easier it became to pretend that he didn't care.

It wasn't true, it could never have been. He did remember. He remembered them all, even though he'd said he didn't. Even though he'd told the previous Doctor and the War Doctor that he never thought about it, that he never cared about it, he really did. He thought of the children often enough, even though it wasn't as often as the previous Doctors. He remembered the number, somewhat vaguely, but remembered it. And for a while, he even tried to find a solution, to find a way out of this war without destroying every living Time Lord.

But at some point, as he'd realized he could never change it, he let go. He forgot again. Shoved it all to another part of his brain, to a spot in which he'd never see it again. And as time went by, and he could smile more, be happier, he realized he was also going madder. Because even though he forgot, his subconscious never did. And just like them all, at night he'd still dreamed of it.


End file.
